Editorial: What are our Options in the Fight against Breast Cancer?

In this issue of SQUMJ, Hamadeh et al. report on the epidemiology of female breast cancer in the Bahraini population with a total of 1,005 cases diagnosed over an 11-year period. 1 The authors report the age-standardised incidence rate of 58.2 per 100,000 population in 2000 and 44.4 per 100,000 in 2010. The median age at diagnosis was 49 years and the five-year survival rate was 63%. This article raises a number of important issues. The incidence in Bahrain is midway between that of developed and less-developed countries, while the mean age at diagnosis is lower than Western countries, and survival is somewhat inferior to that reported from most developed countries.